Micromuse buys into compliance

Business service management (BSM) specialist Micromuse is to beef up its software range to help firms comply with regulations following its acquisition of security management company GuardedNet. However, some experts believe that the growing emphasis on regulatory compliance is causing firms to be too protective of information and is therefore reducing the transparency of their operations.

Micromuse said GuardedNet's NeuSecure suite will help it give managers more information on risks to IT environments. The firm's security suite also offers event management capabilities and reporting and auditing tools. The system can generate reports specifically tailored for compliance with regulations such as the US Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. 

Peter White, vice-president of packaged solutions at Micromuse, said information on IT security is an important part of any firm's regulatory compliance strategy.

"Security management solutions prove a firm has acted to secure its data whenever a threat arises and that managers have full knowledge of what is happening across their IT systems," White added.

Micromuse also plans to integrate NeuSecure with its own Netcool business management suite. White said this would allow IT managers to monitor the business impact of security threats and prioritise actions accordingly.

However, Frank Buytendijk of analyst firm Gartner, speaking at a recent roundtable event in London, said regulations are failing to meet the goal of increasing the transparency of companies' operations. Instead the new rules have made firms fearful of breaching regulations and many middle managers have become too protective of information, he argued. Consequently they are failing to take full advantage of improvements in technologies such as business intelligence (BI) systems, he said.

"There has been a move, from a BI point-of-view, back to the dark ages," argued Buytendijk. "Because of the risks involved, the effect has been less transparency and less business effectiveness."